Lost

I needed to make it to a lake. My friends were waiting. I

knocked on a door. An old woman answered. “Yes?” she

said. She sounded like my dead grandmother. She looked

like my dead grandmother. She was not my dead

grandmother. “I’m trying to find a lake,” I said. “Which

lake?” she asked. “I don’t know which lake,” I said. “Lots of

lakes around here,” the woman like my dead grandmother

says. My phone rang and I couldn’t read the screen.

Couldn’t see the number. I apologized to the woman like

my dead grandmother and answered the call. It was my

dead grandmother. “I’m trying to find a lake,” she said.

“Which lake?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she said. “Lots of

lakes around here,” I said. “Who is it?” asked the woman

like my dead grandmother but who was defnitely not my

dead grandmother. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know

either,” the woman said. “And neither do I,” my dead

grandmother replied.

Benjamin Niespodziany is a Chicago-based writer whose work has appeared in Indiana Review, BOOTH, Fence, Bennington Review, Conduit, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection was released in 2022 through Okay Donkey and his novella of connected microfictions is out now with X-R-A-Y. You can find more at neonpajamas.com.